


TMNT 2012

by Kejonida



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, Interspecies Relationship(s), Kidnapping, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-05 12:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15170864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kejonida/pseuds/Kejonida
Summary: Maureen Hope has lived her whole life imprisoned by the Kraang. What happens when she is rescued by the turtles? How will her life change? Official pairing is Leo and Maureen. Each chapter will be from a different person's point of view.





	1. Rise of the Turtles, Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter follows Maureen and takes place during the episode Rise of the Turtles, Part 1. Explains a little bit about Maureen's backstory.

Purple and Black! Those were the only colors I had seen for basically my whole life. Purple and Black! The colors of my prison with the Kraang. 

I had been held captive by the Kraang for basically my whole life. They had experimented on me with something called mutagen. This mutagen gave me the power to control electricity. I would use it to escape my captives, but unfortunately they had given me the powers so they also knew what my weakness was. In this case my weakness was that if I got wet my powers would stop working until I was completely dry. 

I did know how to read, write and talk like a normal person because the Kraang had captured a teacher for me when I was young. I don’t know what happened to her, but I believe she was probably executed or experimented on after she taught me everything I needed to learn. They didn’t want me to be stupid and wanted me to blend in with society in case they ever needed me to do any spying for them. So far they hadn’t used me to do that.

My days usually consisted of being experimented on or looking at the opposite wall in my cell. Sometimes if I was lucky they would bring a book for me to read, those were the only times I didn’t completely hate my life. I don’t know what happened to my parents. They could be dead or they may still be alive and have just forgotten about me, but from what I heard from the Kraang they were probably dead. 

This day started out like any other day, the Kraang did experiments on me and then they locked me back in my cell. However, that is when things started to change, at that point in time two people were thrown into my cell with me. 

The two people was a man and what I assumed to be his daughter. The two people had red hair. The man was balding and the girl wore her hair in a ponytail she was also wearing a yellow shirt with a number 5 on it. This was the first time I had seen other humans in a really long time.

“Let us out!” The girl screamed as she banged on the door.

“That won’t work.” I said, my voice cracking from lack of use.

The girl looked surprise as if she just noticed me, “Why not?”

“I’ve been here long enough to know.” 

“How long have you been here?” The girl asked me.

“Since I was a baby.” I answered.  
“And how old are you now?” She asked with a look that was a mix between pity and fear, the pity for me and the fear for her and her father.

“Fifteen, I think.” I had never really thought about it, but based on what I had learned from the Kraang I calculated my age to be about fifteen.

“That’s how old I am.” She said like she was trying to get my mind off of the situation I had lived my whole life through. “I’m April O’Neil, what’s your name?”

“Maureen Hope.” I answered. 

My teacher had given me that name. Before that I was just called the experiment, but my teacher wished to call be by something besides that so she named me Maureen after her mother and she used the name Hope because that was her surname. Her name was Louise Hope and she was the only family I had ever known.

“Well it is nice to meet you Maureen and I promise you that we will get out of here.” April said giving me a genuine smile.

Looking up at her I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time. I felt hope.


	2. Rise of the Turtles, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The turtles go off to find the kidnapped family, but when they arrive they not only find the family, but also another girl with a special powers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place during the episode Rise of the Turtles, Part 2 and is told from Leo's point of view

It had been a strange day. First we got to go topside the first time in our lives and then when we were topside we saw a girl and her father get kidnapped by these weird men in suits. Since we were unable to fight as a team, Master Splinter decided to pick someone to be the leader and he chose me. I decided to take my team, that’s right my team, back up topside to try and rescue the girl and her dad. We waited on the rooftop for what felt like hours until the van who had kidnapped the two people showed up. However, we were not prepared for what we found next. What came out of the van was the same green canister that had turned us and Master Splinter into mutants.

We stared at the glowing, green canister in amazement.

“So that’s the…” I started to say.

“Mutagen that turned us all into what we are now.” Donnie finished.

“Let’s drink some!” Mikey suggested enthusiastically.

“What?!” Raph asked in astonishment at Mikey’s idiocy. “Why would you do that?”

“Cause if you mutate a mutant, you get a super mutant.” Mikey said trying to show us his way of thinking.

“Or a pile of goo on the sidewalk.” Donnie said.

“Either way it’s an improvement.” Raph said sarcastically.

“Guys this is huge. Whoever kidnapped those people our somehow connected to what happened to us fifteen years ago.” I said trying to get everybody back on track.

“How is that possible?” Donnie asked in shock.

“For alien robots anything is possible.” Mikey answered.

“Stop that there are no such thing as alien robots.” Donnie argued.

“Oh yeah!” Mikey said walking over to the man, who we had knocked out on the sidewalk and was slowly gaining consciousness, and grabbed his head. “Well if there’s no such thing as alien robots how do you explain this.” 

Mikey then started to try and pull the guys jaw apart while the man screamed in protest. “Man this mask is glued on tight.”  
“Mikey stop it’s not a mask.” I said stopping Mikey from hurting the guy anymore.

“Okay he’s in the clear.” Mikey relented throwing the guy on the ground. “But those other guys were totally alien robots.”

I forgot to mention that Mikey believes that the men in suits, who kidnapped the girl and her father, were aliens robots with brains in their chests. The things this kid came up with. 

“Enough! Time to get some answers. Who are you and what’s going on?” Raph asked waking up to the guy and grabbing him by the arm. 

“Names Snake and I got nothing to say to you hideous freaks.” The man named Snake said back to Raph.

“Huh, that’s cause you don’t know us yet.” Raph said as he threw Snake at us.

We caught Snake and held him up so Raph could play bad cop some more.

“See, we were just regular guys until we got hit with a little of this.” Raph said as he opened up the canister.

“What are you doing?” Snake asked with a hint of fear in his voice.

“Playing a little game I like to call mutation rulet.” Raph said getting ready to pour the canister on Snake. “Now you could you could turn out handsome like me or you might end up disgusting and deformed, like Mikey here.”

“Hey!” Mikey snapped at Raph for his teasing comment.

“So you feel lucky.” Raph said and started to pour out the contents of the canister.

Snake started to scream as the ooze came closer and closer to his face. 

“Okay! Okay!” Snake screamed making Raph stop pouring the ooze on him. “They call themselves the Kraang. They’ve been grabbing scientists from all over the city.”

“Well that worked pretty good.” I said happy to at least get that much information out of him.

“Yeah of course it did. Would you want to look like Mikey?” Raph teased.

“I’m right here.” Mikey said.

“What do they want with scientists?” I asked Snake.  
“I don’t know.” Snake answered and Raph shook the mutagen at him. “All I know is that they are taking them out of the city tonight, but I don’t know where.”

“This is awesome! That girl’s dad is a scientist, I’m a scientist. Oh she is so going to like me.” Donnie said getting off track because of his crush on the girl who was kidnapped.

“I don’t think your her type.” Snake said to Donnie.

“Where are they now?” I asked Snake.

“They are at a building called TCRI.” Snake told us as he was afraid that Raph was really going to pour the ooze on him.

We found the building quickly enough and climbed on top of the building opposite in order to try and scout out the place and find a way in. We brought Snake with us and had Mikey keep watch on him. I used my telescope to get a better view of the triangular shaped building. It had a helicopter on top which I was sure was going to be used to transport the family someplace else.

“There’s got to be like twenty of them down there.” I said spotting the multiple men in suits called Kraang on the roof of the building.

“Yeah and that’s just the ones we can see.” Donnie said.

“Alright an all you can eat buffet.” Raph said getting out his sais and getting ready to attack. 

“We can’t just rush in there, we need a plan.” I said stopping Raph from being too impulsive.

“Why?” Raph asked looking disappointed.

“Think you shell brain. There are innocent lives at stake. If we screw this up they’re all gonners.” Donnie reminded Raph.

“Then we won’t screw it up.” Raph said as if it were really that easy.

“Oh I could sure go for some of that pizza right now huh.” Mikey said completely oblivious to what we were talking about. 

We stared at him for a second wondering if he was really that oblivious. “What I can’t be the only one that’s hungry?” Mikey asked wondering why we were just staring at him.

“Where’s Snake?” I asked realizing that we had giving Mikey the job of watching him.

“Oh geez!” Mikey said when he noticed that Snake had run off.

“Get him!” I commanded as I saw Snake jump down on a nearby fire escape.

Snake ran down the fire escape and off the building and we chased after him as fast as possible. We decided to split up. Raph and I went one way and Donnie and Mikey went the other way so we would cover more ground in finding Snake. 

Raph and I ran to a nearby playground and I noticed him behind a building, hiding. I gestured to the building with my eyes not wanting to let Snake in on that we knew where he was hiding. Raph gave me a nod to let me know that he understood what I was saying. 

“Oh great we let him get away.” I said making my voice loud in order for Snake to hear us in the hopes of tricking him.

“Woah woah woah! You’re the leader, that means you let him get away.” Raph said making me angry.

“You’re not helping.” I whispered, annoyed.

“I’m not trying to help.” Raph whispered back with a smug grin.

“Okay okay! You want me to lead, fine.” I whispered and then made my voice loud again. “We go back to the lair gear up and at midnight we drive Snake’s van right up to the gate. They’ll think we’re him and we’ll cruise right in.”

“And then we’ll bust some heads?” Raph asked.

“And then we bust some heads.” I agreed. 

“I love a happy ending.” Raph said looking pleased with the results of the conversation.

I hoped that Snake believed our fake plan. I thought this as we went to go collect Mikey and Donnie so we could return to the lair. We found them quickly enough. Mikey looked bruised for some reason, but besides that they were ok. We quickly told them what happened and then we all returned to the lair to prepare for midnight. 

When we got back to the lair everyone went off to do their own thing and I went to the dojo to come up with a real plan for tonight.

“I think this plan is gonna work.” I said when I had figured out a plan.

“No plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” Master Splinter said and I looked up to face him, I was used to him just entering a room without anyone noticing. “It is how you react to the unexpected that determines if you and your brothers succeed. 

“Sensei do you think I’m ready for this.” I asked feeling a little unsure of my abilities as a leader.

“Leonardo I made you for a reason.” Master Splinter said putting a hand on my shoulder.

“What is that reason?” I asked him.

“That is for you to discover on your own.” He said back to me. I hated when he was vague like that.

“But there’s so much riding on this. “What if something goes wrong?” I asked worriedly.

“Failor is a possibility every leader must face, Leonardo.” He told me which wasn’t exactly helpful. “It is something I had to face in Japan during my final battle with my enemy, The Shredder:

Years ago, Oroku Saki, as Shredder was called then, had been my friend, but the love of a woman came between us. He could not accept it and his jealousy turned outwards in a vengeful attack. And while he could not defeat me that day, my world fell and crumbled around me. As the battle took the life of my beloved Tang Sheng and I lost my baby daughter, Miwa. 

“But that’s my point, Sensei, you lost everything.” I said when Splinter was done with his story.

“I lost many things: my family, my home, my name,” Splinter said listing off things that he had lost, which made me feel more nervous. “but I gained many things as well, like the four of you.” 

This made me feel more confident, “Don’t worry we can handle this.” 

Just then Mikey ran screaming through the room while Raph chased after him. Splinter and I looked at each other with looks that said we were annoyed, but not surprised.

After we got Raph to stop trying to kill Mikey we got ready to go. I explained the plan to them and they agreed that it would probably work. I sure hoped that they weren’t wrong.

We set up the first part of the plan which was setting up the van to drive straight into the building of TCRI. Donnie had set it up so it would drive by itself and while the Kraang were busy with that we were climbing up the wall of TCRI.  
“Wow, lucky thing that van showed up to distract them.” Mikey said and I rolled my eyes at his stupidity.

“That was the plan, Mikey. We knew Snake was hiding in the alley so Raph and I made him think we would be hiding in the van.” I explained to Mikey.

“But we weren’t in the van.” Mikey said still not getting it.

“Just keep climbing.” I snapped, not wanting to get into it right now.

“Can do.” Mikey said and we all continued to climb up the wall.

When we got to the top Donnie cut open a hole in the ceiling and we all jumped down and landed on a couple of Kraang. We took those guys out easily. After they were down we continued to walk through the building. There were strange tubes that transported purple gel throughout the building.

“Wow I’ve never seen anything like this.” Donnie said looking impressed. “They’re using a metal alloy that I don’t even recognize.”

“Gosh, a metal alloy that even you don’t know about. It boggles the mind.” Raph teased Donnie.

“Dude, you wanna talk about metallurgy with me. Bring it!” Donnie said starting to argue with Raph.

“I don’t and…” Raph started to argue back.

“Guys, what part of being in an enemy lair do you guys not understand.” I said stopping them before the argument got any worse. 

They stopped arguing and we continued to sneak through the building. At the end of the hallway stood six robot things that were pointing guns at us. What was the most disturbing thing was that they had brains in their chests, which would mean that Mikey was telling the truth.

“Woah alien robots!” Donnie exclaimed when he saw them.

“Alien robots, huh, where have I heard that before. Oh yeah, I’ve been saying it for hours.” Mikey shouted, which made the robots start firing their laser guns at us.

This prompted us to start fighting them. Each of us went to fight a different robot, but because there were six of them and only four of us, I was forced to take down two at once. It was easy enough, all I had to do was cut off their heads. Once their bodies were destroyed the brain like objects left the bodies. It growled at us and got ready to attack, but before it could Mikey hit it over the head with his nunchuk. This blow made the brain thing pass out.

“See! See! It’s a brain thing.” Mikey said holding it up by its tentacles to show us. “I told you! I told you, but did any of you believe me? No, because you guys all think I’m just some kind of bone head.”

Just then the brain thing woke up and started to bite Mikey’s arm. Mikey shook it off and ended up throwing it at a wall which made it hit an alarm button that alerted the other robot things to where we were. 

“MIKEY!” We all shouted at him.

“Ok, but I was still right about the brain thing. You gotta give me that.” Mikey said defending himself.

“Let’s move!” I commanded everyone not wanting to wait for the robots to show up.

“Move where?” Raph asked.

“I think those are power convuits.” Donnie said pointing up at the tubes.

“Oh that’s really interesting. Thanks for sharing, Donnie.” Raph sarcastically said to Donnie.

“Meathead, the convuits are all converging that way. Which means that whatever is going on in that direction is important.” Donnie told Raph and started to follow the convuits.

I gave Raph a cheeky grin and followed after Donnie. Raph and Mikey followed behind us and we all went to see were the convuits led to. We ran down the hallway and Donnie stopped at a door.

“We found them!” Donnie said looking through the window.

Donnie looked at the lock, but before he could starting trying to crack the code more robots came after us.

“We’ll hold them off, you pick the lock.” And with that we ran after the robots.

I got thrown back into Donnie and noticed that he still had not started picking the lock. “The lock, Donnie!” I shouted at him.

“Oh right! Yeah sorry!” He said and quickly started to work on the lock.  
I went back to fighting off the robots while Donnie tried to figure out the lock. Raph became impatient and used his sais to break the lock. The sais did the trick, but unfortunately the robots came to take the girl and her father before we could get to them. We looked inside the empty cell only to realize that it wasn’t completely empty. Inside sat a teenage girl with messy, curly brown hair and she was staring at the door and she was also soaking wet.

“What’s with the girl?” I asked Donnie.

“I don’t know. She was in here with the girl and her father and when the robots came to take them away they dosed her in water for some reason.” Donnie explained to me looking very confused.

We didn’t have time to worry about her so I picked her up and then we ran after the robots. 

“Get the doors!” I commanded Raph once we had made it to the roof of the building.

Raph had to fight off one of the robots, but he managed to get the doors shut.

“That’ll hold him!” Raph said as he used the robots decapitated arm in order to lock it in.

We stared at him with wide eyes at his gruesome act. “What?” he asked.

“You are seriously twisted.” I said to him.

“Thanks!” Raph said.

“Ok who are you guys?” The girl asked as she wriggled out of my arms.

I was about to answer when I heard the red headed girl scream no. We turned and saw the robots loading her and her father onto a helicopter.

“We don’t have time to explain right now. How are your fighting skills?” I asked in a rush.

“Not very good since I am still soaked.” She answered.

I didn’t have time to ask what she meant by that so instead I said, “Just stay behind me! I’ll protect you.”

“Let’s get them!” I shouted to my brothers and we all jumped into action.

We hadn’t taken two steps though before a giant weed creature stepped in front of us. It looked menacing as it stared down at us. It clicked it’s giant green pincers at us, let out a growl and then it spoke.  
“You did this to me. No you’re going to pay.” It growled a us and recognition dawned on me.

“It’s Snake! He mutated into a giant weed.” I said and Snake hissed at us.

“That’s weird, you’d think he’d get mutated into a snake.” Mikey said.

“Yeah you would, if your an idiot.” Raph said back.

“But his name is Snake.” Mikey argued.

“So.” Raph said.

“You don’t understand science.” Mikey said back.

“Are you seriously fighting when there is a giant weed creature right in front of us?” The girl asked them not believing what was happening.

“They do it all the time. You get used to it.” I told her as I got ready to fight the Snake.

“I’ll crush you turtles.” Snake said menacingly at us.

“Uh would it help if we said it was an accident?” Donnie asked, but Snake let out a large shriek and we took that as a no.

Snake started to attack us so I jumped into the air and used my katana to chop off one of its vines. Purple slime came out of it and Mikey was yelling about not wanting it to touch him. Unfortunately the minute I cut the vine of it instantly grew back.

“It grew back. No fair!” Donnie said.

Just then we heard the helicopter start to take off. I knew we had to move fast if we were going to catch it.

“April!” The girl with the brown hair shouted, maybe they knew each other.

“Donnie go get April!” I ordered him.

Donnie listened to me and I gave him a boost with my hands in order to launch him at the helicopter. The rest of us continued to fight off Snake. It was pointless though everytime we cut off a part of his body it just grew back. Raph ran at Snake, but he was thrown back into Mikey and me.

“Snakeweed is really powerful.” Mikey said and we looked at him in confusion.  
“Snakeweed?” Raph asked.

“Yeah his name was Snake and now he’s a weed so…” Mikey explained.

“We get it.”

“We just have to hold it off until Donnie gets back.” I said and then we noticed a bunch of Kraang coming at us. “While not getting shot by alien robots.”

“With brains.” Mikey added.

“Let it go man.” Raph said.

We tried to attack the Kraang and Snakeweed, I had to admit the name did have a certain ring to it, but there were just too many of them. That’s when I noticed that the girl we had rescued was now dry and staring directly at an electric box.

“What are you looking at?” I asked her in between fighting a Kraang bot.

“Get Snakeweed closer to the electric box.” She said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Just trust me.” She said.

“Guys get Snakeweed over by...what’s your name?” I asked.

“Maureen.” She responded.

“Get Snakeweed over by Maureen.”

The guys did as I said, but I was not prepared for what happened next. Maureen moved her hands above her head facing toward Snakeweed and a giant burst of electricity shot toward him. The electricity made Snakeweed blow-up. Then Maureen motioned toward the Kraan and made their bodies shut down. After that she fell on her hands and knees clearly exhausted from the ordeal. 

“I’ve never done that much before.” She said between breaths.

I ran over to help her up. “That was amazing.” I said still surprised that she was able to do that.

“Yeah it was.” Raph said and the frowned. “Why didn’t you do that before?”   
“It doesn’t work when I’m wet. The Kraang know that and that’s why they dosed me in water.” She explained.

“Woah that was totally awesome. Can we keep her Leo?” Mikey said looking at me with wide eyes.

“Uh, Mikey she probably has family to get back to.” I said a little embarrassed at Mikey’s forwardness.

“I don’t have family. Until recently I was an orphaned captive of the Kraang.” Maureen said.

“So we can keep her.” Mikey said hugging Maureen.

“We’ll see what Master Splinter says.” I said which seemed to satisfy Mikey. 

Donnie came and joined us with April and we all ran off the roof. When we were safely away from the building Donnie turned to us.

“How did you guys defeat them all?” He asked.

“We didn’t she did.” I said turning to look at Maureen.

“Yeah, Donnie it was awesome. She used her super cool electric powers in order to blow up Snakeweed and the she shut down the Kraang. It was so cool!” Mikey told Donnie.

Donnie was looking at Maureen like she was his new science project. I was worried as to what that would entail.

“See Maureen, I told you we would escape.” April said going over and hugging Maureen.

“Wow I’ve never been outside that building before. Thank you for saving me.” She said turning to us.

“Anytime.” We said.

We went to return April to her house. Apparently Donnie had been able to rescue April, but not her father. 

“Are you going to be alright?” Donnie asked April when we got her back to her apartment building.

“I guess. My aunt says I can stay here as long as I want.” She answered so apparently this was her aunt’s house. “But I’ll be a lot better when I’ve tracked down the creeps that took my dad.” 

“Won’t the police help.” I asked.

“Funny thing, when you tell them your dad was kidnapped by alien brains in robot bodies, they don’t take you all that seriously.” April said with a slight laugh.

“I hear that.” Mikey said.

“April I promise you we will not rest until we find him.” Donnie said.

“We won’t?” Raph asked and I elbowed him.

“No we won’t.” I said agreeing with Donnie.

“Thank you, but it’s not your fight.” April said to us.

“Yes it is.” Donnie said putting a hand on April’s knee and she smiled up at him.

We left bringing Maureen with us. I was secretly hoping that Splinter would allow her to stay with us. It would be cool to have a super powered girl on our team.

When we got back to the lair with Maureen we could see a vast mix of emotions coming out of Splinter, but after explaining about what happened to Maureen and a lot of begging from Mikey Splinter agreed to let her stay. While Mikey was busy showing Maureen around the lair, I went off to the dojo to meditate on the day. Splinter came to join me a few moments after I arrived. 

“I am impressed, Leonardo. You proved to be an effective leader under the most difficult of circumstances.” Splinter praised me.

“Thank you, Sensei, and I think I figured out why you made me leader.” I told him.

“Oh, why is that?” Splinter asked me.

“Because you sensed inside me a true warrior spirit that could us all into the heroes we are destined to become.” I said hoping I was right.

“No!” Splinter answered and my face fell.

“No?” I was confused. “Then why did you make me leader?”  
“Because you asked.” He said simply.

“That’s it, but you seemed so certain you were right.” I said confused by his answer.

“As a leader you will learn that there is no right or wrong only choices.” He explained.

“So you could have chosen any of us?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Even Mikey?!”

“No that would have been wrong.”

“Everybody come here! We made the news!” Mikey shouted from the other room.

On the news they were talking about the possibility of there being ninjas in New York and then the news reporter showed a picture of one of our throwing stars. 

“This is awesome! We’re gonna be famous!” Mikey said excited at the possibility that we may be found out.

Splinter did not share that excitement. “You must be more careful. The ninjas most powerful weapon is the shadows, being brought out to the light is a dangerous things.”

“Relax Sensei, it’s one little news story. What’s the worst that can happen?” Raph asked calmly. 

I hoped that Raph was right, but decided to be more cautious the next time. You never know the dangers that might be lurking if we were brought out of the shadows. Overall it had been a good day. We had won our first big battle and made two new human female friends, one even came to live with us. I hoped for more days just like this.


	3. Turtle Temper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raph learns that his anger might control him when he lets a human's insults keep him from being able to fight to the best of his ability. Maureen learns that the Kraang left other effects on her than just her technopathic abilities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place during the episode Turtle Temper and is told from Raph's point of view.

After our first successful mission where we rescued not one, but two girls, Master Splinter allowed us to finally go topside at night. My brothers and I with our new technopathic friend, Maureen, would take that opportunity to search for any danger that might be lurking. So far we hadn’t had much luck, but I was hoping that we might get into a good fight sooner or later.

Tonight we were on the rooftops scoping out potential crimes and when I say we I meant Leo, Donnie and Maureen, Mikey and I had quit about an hour ago. I was busy trying to take a nap, but every time I got close to falling asleep Mikey would poke me in the head.

“Ha Ha!” Mikey laughed while poking me again and I swatted his hand away.

He tried poking me again, but this time I grabbed his finger and cracked it causing Mikey to let out a painful yelp.

“Guys were ninjas! When ninjas are on surveillance they are supposed to be silent!” Leo lectured us.

“Sorry Leo, I’ll scream quieter.” Mikey apologized and tried to go back to poking my head.

However, before he could, I grabbed his finger and flipped him over onto his back. I then put him into a headlock.

“Say it.” I told him and he knew I wouldn’t let him go until he said what I wanted him to say.

“Raph be quiet!” Leo lectured me again.

“Not til Mikey says it.” I told Leo and he knew that I was serious.

“Raphael is all wise and powerful,” Mikey started the speech.

“And?” I prompted him while switching to squeezing his head.

“And he’s better than me in every possible way,” Mikey continued.

“And?” I said tackling him to the ground.

“And I’m a lonely worm beneath his feet, who isn’t fit to live on the same planet as him because he’s so amazing and I’m a dirt clod,” He continued.

“And?” I said threatening to give him a wet willy.

“And in the history of the universe there’s never been,” Mikey said.

“Okay, okay enough!” Leo interrupted and I got off of Mikey.

“You make him say all that when he annoys you?” Maureen asked looking confused

“Yeah how else is he going to learn.” I told her with a sly grin and then turned to Leo. “Where wasting our time, the Kraang aren’t going to show up.”

“Have a little patience will ya.” Leo told me, ever since Splinter made him leader he’s become a real pain in my shell.

“Trust me guys, they’re gonna break into that lab tonight. I have reliable intel.” Donnie explained to me.

“Intel? You mean April told you.” I teased him, Donnie had a huge crush on April.

“You mean your girlfriend?” Mikey teased as well and Donnie started to get mad.

“She’s not my girlfriend, Mikey! She’s a girl whose a friend, whose dad got kidnapped by the same aliens who are going to break into that lab and where going to stop ‘em!” Donnie said going off into a tangent about how much he didn’t like April, though he clearly did.

“Guys stop teasing him. It’s cute that he likes April and she got that information from me. I just told her to tell Donnie.” Maureen said sticking up for Donnie.

“What the heck’s going on up here?” We heard someone say next to us.

When we turned around we saw an overweight man in a wife beater and jeans on. Oh shell, Splinter was going to kill us when he found out that we let another human see us. 

“What are you playing dress up?” Good the man seemed to believe we were in costumes.

“No sir we were just,” Leo tried to explain, but just then the man noticed the satellite dish Mikey and I had knocked over in our fight.

“Which one of you shiny green hamshakes busted my satellite dish?” The guy asked clearly angry, but I didn’t like being insulted, even if I didn’t know what a hamshake was.

“HAMSHAKES!” I yelled at the guy.

“I don’t even know what that means.” Donnie said.

“Me neither, but I don’t like it.” I said reaching for my sais, this guy was going to pay.

“Let’s go.” Leo said stopping me, he could be such a killjoy sometimes.

“That’s right, you spineless cream puff! Listen to your mommy!” The guy said mocking me and it made me even more angry.

“Hey watch it buddy!” I yelled, getting ready to attack him with my sais.

“Oh no! I didn’t know you had salad tongs!” Oh no he did not just insult my sais.

“Salad tongs!” I yelled and started to run at him, but the others held me back. “I’m not gonna take this from some slob with a bad comb over.”

“Are you calling me ugly? Have you seen a mirror lately circus freak? You want a piece of me?” The man goaded.

“When I’m done a piece of you is all that is gonna be left?” I yelled back.

“GUYS!” I heard Maureen scream.

“What?” I asked turning angrily toward her, but just then I knew exactly what she wanted because the Kraang started shooting at us.

“Kraang droids!” Leo said.

“Yes that is what I was trying to tell you guys. The Kraang are here.” Maureen said looking annoyed, but gearing up to use her powers.

“Way to blow our position, Raph.” Leo said to me and we all got ready to fight the Kraang droids as well.

“Scram!” Leo instruct us as the Kraang started shooting at us.

Maureen started to depower their weapons, then she her face went blank and Leo had to push her out of the way in order to stop her from getting hit with the laser beams. That was weird! Maureen hadn’t frozen up the last time we fought the Kraang. I guess we were just going to have to fight them ourselves. It was pretty easy to take them down considering that there was only four of them.

“Keep going, Kung-Fu Frogs.” We heard the guy say and when we turned toward him we saw that he was filming us. “This is pure gold.”

“We’re not frogs, you idiot!” I yelled at him.

“Yeah and it’s not Kung-Fu, it’s an ancient Japanese battle art.” Donnie added.

“Guys he got us on video.” Leo reminded us.

“Not for long he doesn’t.” I angrily said and went to forcibly grab the phone out of the man’s hands.

However, before I reached him the man shut the apartment roof door and I slammed into it. Maureen was just coming around when all this was happening. Oh great we could have used her to blow up the phone.

“Fire trucks on route, thirty seconds.” Donnie told us when we started to hear sirens.

“Let’s move.” Leo told us.

“Wait, we have to find that guy and break his phone and his face.” I said, angry that no one cared about giving that guy what was coming to him.

The others weren’t listening to me as they were to busy running away. Angry, but knowing they were right, I followed them. 

Splinter was not happy when we got home and told him what happened.

“Not only did Raphael alert the Kraang, but you got caught on video.” Splinter lectured us.

“Sensei, he was the angriest nastiest guy you would have ever met.” I tried defending myself. “And he wouldn’t have got us on video if Maureen had just depowered the Kraang like she was supposed to.”

“I’m sorry, but when I saw the Kraang droids all I could think about was when they tortured me.” Maureen said shaking.

“It’s all right, Maureen, it was Raph’s fault for alerting them in the first place.” Leo said rubbing Maureen’s back.

“Well you should have heard the insults this guy was throwing at us, they were so insulting.” I said ignoring Leo and continuing to defend myself.

“Oh I did not realize he said mean things. Of course you had no choice but to jeopardize your mission.” Splinter said clearly not caring about my side of the story.

“Burn.” Mikey said so that only I could hear.

“You are ninjas. You work in the shadows. In secret. This becomes difficult if there is proof of your existence in high definition.” Splinter continued to lecture us.

“Look, we know where this guy lives. All we need to do is find him and shake him til the tape pops out.” I told Splinter. 

“Oh there’s no tape. Videophones use flash memory…” Donnie started, but the quickly stopped when he saw the look on my face. 

“Anger is self destructive.” Splinter told me.

“I alway thought it was others destructive.” I said under my breath, but Splinter heard me.

“RAPHAEL!” He yelled at me. “Stand up.”

I stood up like he told me not wanting to make him anymore angry.

“Somebody’s in trouble.” Mikey taunted, making me angry.

Then Splinter gave everybody, but me, suction cup bow and arrows, but he didn’t tell us what they were for. 

“Evade the arrows.” Splinter instructed me.

“No problem.” This had to be the easiest punishment Splinter had ever given out.

The others started to shoot arrows at me and I was able to evade them with ease. Then Splinter stopped us.

“Again only this time, Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Maureen, insult Raphael.” Splinter instructed them.

“Wait! Insult him?” Donnie asked disbelievingly. 

“Yes.” Splinter said simply.

“And he can’t fight back?” Donnie asked, wait I didn’t think about that.

“Nope.” Splinter answered, oh shell.

“I’m feeling good about this plan.” Donnie laughed.  
Splinter told them they could start and then the guys reigned in on me.

“You look like a bloated buffalo.” Mikey started off the insults while releasing an arrow.

“I do not.” I say back, but even though I’m upset I am still able to dodge the first arrow.

“And you’re always whining, ‘Poor me, nobody understands me’.” Leo mocks and releases an arrow.

“Well you don’t under…” but I am cut off by an arrow hitting the back of my shell.

“And you don’t keep your back straight while doing omote kote gyaku.” Donnie said releasing an arrow which hit the back of my shell as well. “And you’re ugly.

“And gassy.” Maureen said shooting off an arrow which hit the back of my shell as well.

They continued to insult me and shoot me with arrows and I kept getting angrier and angrier. The angrier I got the more arrows hit me. This wasn’t fair! Eventually enough arrows hit me that I fell over.

“You know what, forget this. This is stupid.” I said, getting up and throwing the arrows off of me.

“Ninniku seishin is the ability to endure insults with patience and humility. You cannot be a true ninja until you master it.” Splinter lectured me. “Understood?”

“Hai, sensei.” I said.

“You must get that video back. Using reason, not force.” Splinter told us, but I could tell he was mostly talking to me.

We went back to the guys apartment with the plan to try to convince him to give us the phone and if that didn’t work Maureen was going to blow it up. At least I would get to see something bad happen to the man.

The guy was on the phone with someone, but he quickly hung up when we jumped down around him.

“Lay one finger on me frogs and I’m calling the cops.” He threatened us, backing away.

“We’re not gonna hurt you.” I said trying to be pleasant.

“Then what do you want, freak?” The guy asked us, but I didn’t let the insult bother me.  
“We got off on the wrong foot last night. Some things were said, and well, we would just like that video back.” I said hoping the guy would be nice.

Leo nudged me and I added a quick please.

“What are you gonna give me for it?” The guy asked and I wanted to strangle him so badly.

“Give you for it?” I asked trying not to lose my temper.

“Well I figure I’ve got you over a barrel so you’ve got to make it worth my while.” The guy said, oh he was really testing my patience.

“I’ll make it worth your while. I won’t take your hand and smash it against the…” I started to yell but Maureen put a hand over my mouth.

“Okay, okay, thank you, Raphael. I will take over.” He said to me and then turned to the man. “So what are you looking for?”

“A cool mil ought to cover it.” The guy told Leo.

“A cool mil of what?” Leo asked looking confused.

“A million dollars.” The guy said, that’s it he was going to die.

“We don’t have a million dollars.” Leo told the guy.

“We do have some Canadian quarters that fell through the grate.” Mikey jumped in.

“I can make serious money off this thing and if you don’t wanna pay, I’ll hold onto it until someone else does.” The man said and oh I was going to enjoy pummel his face into the ground.

Maureen was just about to blow up his phone when I couldn’t take it anymore.

“That’s it!” I said grabbing the guy and throwing him on the ground. “Hand over the video or, so help me, I’ll kick your hairy butt all the way to New Jersey!”

“Raph!” I heard Leo shout at me and when I looked up a van was coming straight toward us.

Leo managed to push me out of the way in time before the van hit me and the guy.

“Let’s not let this one get away.” Leo told me and I grunted.

I threw a nearby trash can at the van, making it swerve and hit a lamp post.. “Well that was easy.” I said.

The Kraang jumped out of the van and started shooting lasers at us. Just like before, instead of fighting off the Kraang Maureen froze. Leo was again forced to move Maureen out of the way before he started attacking the Kraang with us. 

The guy was inside the Kraang van and he was getting ready to take another video. I started walking up to the guy ignoring Leo’s protests.

“We’ve got unfinished business!” I yelled at him and he started to back away. “You give me that phone right now!” 

All of a sudden the Kraang came in and the van took off. I started to beat up the Kraang and was easily able to defeat them.

“Let’s get out of here!” I said to the man, even though I hated him he was still a human whom we were sworn to protect.

“Forget it! You lizards don’t want to buy my video, maybe these guys will.” The guy said pointing at the Kraang, this guy couldn’t be any more irritating.

“Raph!” I heard Donnie shout. “Get out of there!”

“Listen you idiot! Frogs are not lizards and we’re not frogs.” I yelled right into his face.

Then one of the Kraang grabbed me and threw me out of the van. I ended up hitting my brothers making them fall down. We got right back up and I noticed that Leo had been running with Maureen in his arms because she was still shaken up from seeing the Kraang again.

“Nice going Raph!” Leo yelled at me.

“What did I do?” I asked.

“What did you do? You left the four of us in the middle of the fight to yell at somebody. We could’ve stopped them, but thanks to your temper the guy with the tape...” Leo yelled at me.

“Again technically it’s a flash…” Donnie said cutting Leo off.

“Not now!” Leo said to Donnie and then turned back to me to continue his rant. “Is in the hands of the Kraang. How are we supposed to find them?”

“Look! The trucks leaking.” We heard Donnie shout all of a sudden.  
“All right we can follow the trail to their hideout.” Leo said seeming to have forgotten about his lecture.

“And then we’ll bash some bots.” I was excited to get back into the action again, however, Leo kept glaring at me. “What?”

“We are going to go bash some bots. You are going home and you are bringing Maureen with you, she’s still shaking up pretty badly.” Leo told me.

“What? Are you kidding me?” I asked, not ready to believe that he was just sending me home.

I then turned towards Donnie and Mikey hoping that they would back me up, but they seemed to be in agreement with Leo. They left me and Maureen standing alone on the streets. I guided Maureen back to the sewers and I could see that she was still shaking. What was wrong with her? Why was she so freaked out?

When we got back to the lair, Maureen went to lie down and I went to rant to my pet turtle, Spike.

“Who does Leo think he is? So what if I got a temper? I’m still the best fighter we got. In fact, if anything, my anger makes me a better fighter. You understand me, don’t you, Spike? Chew on your leaf if you understand me.” And Spike bit down on a piece of his leaf. “Yeah, I thought so.”

“I understand you, too!” I heard Splinter say all of a sudden and I almost jumped out of my shell from fright.

“Seriously, you gotta knock or something.” I told Splinter after my breathing had calmed down.

“Raphael, let me tell you a story.” Splinter said.

“Sensei, I’m not in the mood for a story.”

“Spike, chew on your leaf if you are in the mood for a story.” And Spike chewed on his leaf. “Very well! When I was a young man, I fell in love with a woman.”

“Oh, hey, is it that late?”

“Sit:

Her name was Teng Shen and I was not the only one who loved her. There was another man competing for her attention, Oroku Saki. One day, he insulted me in front of her. He called me many things. I felt I could not let those insults go unanswered. I lost my temper and over time our rivalry festered into hatred...until Shredder sought to finish me...and I lost my beloved Tang Shen.

Splinter finished the story with a sad look on his face.

“But...but it wasn’t your fault. Shredder insulted you. You had no choice.” I told Splinter.

“No choice? I could have chosen to ignore him. I could have chosen to let his words wash over me...like a river over stone, but I let him anger me. It was I who made his words into weapons. That’s the choice I made. What choice will you make?” Splinter finished the lesson and then walked away, leaving me to think over his words.

I decided to go the Kraang hideout and help my brothers out and this time I wasn’t going to let any insults get in my way. When I arrived there I saw my brothers fighting off a giant acid spitting spider. I was confused at first until I heard it speak. I realized that this spider was the rude guy with the phone. This might be the best use of karma I had ever seen.

“Wow!” I shouted at him, getting his attention. “I didn’t think this guy could get any uglier.”

“Raph!” My brothers shouted and I was glad to see that they were happy to see me.

“Well I think you’ve been punished long enough. Come and join us!” Leo told me.

“Hey, it’s the kung fu frog with the salad tongs.” The spider said trying to insult me, but I let it wash right over me.

“Hey, it’s the stupid loudmouth who’s about to get his butt kicked.” I said getting my sais ready.

The spider shot acid at me, but I was able to dodge it with ease.

“Dance for me, frog.” The spider said to me, but again I didn’t let his words affect me. “Watch me turn your friends into frog fries. I’ll serve ‘em up with your salad tongs.” 

The spider jumped away and I followed after him. I managed to jump right on top of his head and he roared at me in anger.

“Aww, froggy thinks he can stop me. What’s that, tadpole? Are you too scared to leap off your lily pad and get your warts knocked off of you.” He continued to taunt me, but then I blocked his words out and couldn’t hear him anymore.

“Like a river over stone.” I said to myself.

I jumped at him and managed to dodge all his attacks until he was tired out.  
“That’s some kung fu, frog.” The guy said after he stopped trying to kill me.

“We’re not kung fu frogs.” I said when my brothers came to join us. “We’re ninja turtles.”

And with that we all attacked him at once and managed to knock him down within five seconds. Then I stepped on his phone, crushing it, right in front of him.

“You guys are gonna regret this.” He said and then he jumped out of the building.

We tried to follow him, but by the time we got outside he had already jumped away. I knew even though my anger was still going to control me sometimes, I knew that at least now I had a better handle on it.


	4. New Friend, Old Enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikey makes a new friend, but is he everything that he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is told from Donnie's point of view and takes place during the episode Old Friend, New Enemy.

Well this week couldn’t have been any stranger. We met two human females. One was named April O’Neil and she was so pretty and her dad is a scientist so I’m sure that I have a chance of going out with her. Well anyways the other girl was named Maureen Hope. She’s a technopath whom Leo seems to have a thing for or maybe he likes saving her. We also found out that there is more mutagen, the stuff that turned us into mutants, around the city and it has already turned two humans into mutated freaks. Granted we didn’t like them anyways, but still it isn’t good. Maybe we should’ve just stayed in the sewers.

Currently we were training on the rooftops by doing backflips and running. Maureen was with us because Leo figured that the way to get over her phobia of the Kraang was to be able to beat them not just with her powers, but with her fighting skills as well. Personally I think the girl needed therapy. Of course that was impossible because no therapist would believe her and think it was just some deep psychological trauma that had caused her to believe this story of hers, but still she needed help. 

“Check it out!” I yelled as I did a backflip over the crack between the buildings and landed smoothly on the other side. 

Mikey followed and did a nice side roll, landing smoothly as well. 

“Top that, turtle chumps!” Mikey called to Leo and Raph, he didn’t dare insult Maureen since he basically worshipped her because she was a ‘superhero’ in his opinion.

Leo backed up to get a running start and then did a triple flip in the air, landing on the other side as smoothly as we did. It was pretty impressive. Raph came next, but instead of doing some cool trick he just lept across the building and tackled all three of us to the ground.

“Hey what was that? You didn’t do any flips.” I said to Raph.

Raph didn’t look sorry at all and then we noticed that Maureen was still on the other building. She was looking nervously over the edge. So far all the buildings had been really close together, but this one was wider apart.

“Is it safe?” Maureen asked.

“Perfectly safe.” Leo called back and walked up to the edge of the building holding his arms out. “Don’t worry, Maureen, I’ll catch you.” 

Maureen jumped after that and landed in Leo’s arms. Leo was technically the one who saved Maureen from the Kraang so she felt safest around him and trusted him the most. I wish April would jump into my arms like that.  
Right after Leo put Maureen down we all heard a sound and quickly ducked behind a wall. We got our weapons ready and jumped out, but on the other side was a black kitten with huge green eyes. 

“Don’t give up, Leo. You might actually win this fight.” Raph teased Leo.

“Aww! It’s a little kitty!” Mikey said going to pick the kitten up, Mikey loved animals. “And it’s name is…”

“Mittens!” We heard a voice call out.

“Good guess! Wait, who said that?” Mikey asked looking confused.

We looked down and saw a man calling out his window for the kitten.

“I think that’s the owner.” I said to the guys.

All of a sudden Mikey ran off in the direction of the owner. We all started shouting at him and asking him what he was doing.

“What? I’m returning Mittens to her owner.” Mikey explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Are you an idiot? Wait...let me rephrase that. You’re an idiot!” Raph said to Mikey.

“You can’t show yourself to a human.” I told Mikey.

“Why not?” Mikey asked, he could be so naive sometimes.

“Because they’ll freak the heck out, that’s why not.” I yelled at Mikey.

“No, they won’t.” Mikey said.

“Come on Mikey, just let Maureen deliver the kitten back to her owner.” Leo said trying to convince Mikey.

“No I found her and I’m going to be the one to return her. You’ll see, this guy’s going to see that I’m just a regular cat-loving dude like him and the next thing you know we’ll be best buds.” Mikey told us and then went off to deliver the cat, while ignoring our protests.

The next thing we heard was the guy screaming for help. Oh no, what had Mikey done? The cat started to freak out and attacked Mikey and Mikey ended up falling off the fire escape. We watched all this happen from the building ledge. We jumped down to see if Mikey was ok.  
“Someone wanna help me with this?” Mikey asked us as he bent over and showed us the cat scratching the back of his shell.

“No!” We all said, well except for Maureen.

“I’ll help Mikey.” Maureen said as she went and pet the cat and enabled it to calm down long enough to get it off Mikey’s shell. 

“Thank you.” Mikey said still looking a little upset.

“I’ll just go return her to her owner.” Maureen said and started back up the fire escape.

“Face it humans will never understand you. Heck, we don’t even understand you.” Raph told Mikey.

“Yeah.” Mikey sighed.

All of a sudden Mikey looked up and gasped.

“But I bet that guy would!” He said and we all looked to see what Mikey was staring at.

“Chris Bradford? The martial arts superstar? With a chain of dojos across the country? He’s your soulmate.” Leo asked wondering how Mikey could be so stupid.

“What about Chris Bradford?” Maureen asked returning from delivering the kitten.

“Mikey thinks that he can become friends with Chris Bradford.” Leo explained to her.

“Why do you think that Mikey?” Maureen asked.

“We’ve got so much in common.” Mikey said posing like Chris Bradford.

“What if you stop standing like that?” I asked Mikey.

“We’ll have a little less in common, but still a lot and look, he’s in town for a martial arts expo.” Mikey said reading the sign. “Maybe he’ll show me his secret kata, the Death Dragon, and I’ll show him my secret kata, the secret kata.” 

“Catchy!” I said sarcastically.

“Check it out!” Mikey told us and then proceeded to do moves that did absolutely nothing. “But don’t tell anyone you saw that.”

“No problem.” Leo said sarcastically.

“Face it Mikey, Chris Bradford is the last person on earth that would be friends with you. Well tied for last with everyone else on earth.” Raph said not really breaking it easy to Mikey.

“Raph don’t be rude.” Maureen snapped at Raph and the turned to Mikey. “I’m sure there are plenty of people on earth who want to be friends with you.”

“So you think I can be friends with Chris Bradford?” Mikey asked hopefully.

“Well I didn’t say that. Maybe we should try smaller. Like maybe a three year old and work our way up.” Maureen said trying to ease Mikey into the idea that him and Chris Bradford would never be friends.

Just then we saw some weird people with masks on behind Mikey. They looked like ninjas, but that couldn’t be, we were the only ninjas in New York.

“Ninjas? In New York? Other than us?” I asked and then we took out our weapons to start fighting.

Maureen blasted some of them away and we fought the rest of them off. The ninjas were easy, it was when this big guy came by that really through us. He knocked us down and picked Mikey up, but just before he could do anything Maureen blasted him with a bolt of electricity and he went down. 

Before we had a chance to recover we heard sirens in the distance and we had to escape as quickly as possible. 

Back at the layer all of us, except for Maureen and Leo who were in the dojo, were hanging out with April in the living room. Raph was doing push ups, Mikey was reading a Chris Bradford magazine and I was sneakily trying to watch April over my computer screen.

“I wish Chris Bradford and I were friends.” Mikey was saying.

“Mikey you already have human friends, Maureen and me.” April said trying to make Mikey forget about Chris Bradford, Maureen had filled her in on Mikey suddenly being eager to become friends with Chris Bradford.

“April, you guys don’t count. We saved you guys lives, you guys have to like us.” Mikey told her, he did have a point.

“Too bad there’s no place for freaks to meet people where no one can see how hideous they are.” Raph said between push ups.  
“Wait, there is...the internet!” April said, she was as smart as she was beautiful. “Donnie, can I see your laptop?

She asked to see my laptop, oh this was a lovely day. Wait she can’t see my laptop I had pictures of her that I was looking at. If she saw them she would know I liked her.

“Sure just I sec.” I found myself saying and I quickly exited out of the picture I was looking at.

“Check it out, it’s a site where you can make friends with anybody online.” April told Mikey as she was typing on my laptop, April’s DNA was now on my laptop.

Mikey snatched the the computer away and started typing eagerly. “Chris Bradford’s on here! He’ll be my first friend!”

After Mikey sent the friend request he just stared at the computer, he wasn’t even blinking. April and I looked at him worriedly.

“Mikey, people don’t always respond immed…” April started to say, but before she could finish we heard a beeping sound on the laptop. “but sometimes they do.”

Mikey didn’t say anything for a little while, he just gasped and then he said, “No way! Chris Bradford had accepted my friendship! I have a friend! Thanks, April!”

He hugged April and then got up to leave the lair. Uh oh!

“Where are you going?” I asked chasing after him.

“To hang out with my friend, Chris Bradford.” Mikey emphasised to me, he didn’t really believe that they were really friends, did he?

“This guy’s famous. He probably has thousands of ‘friends.’” April tried to tell Mikey.

“And guess who’s number five thousand, two hundred and eighty-six?” Mikey asked, clearly not getting at what April meant.

“You?” April guessed.

“Daniel Ramirez and I’m right next to him.” Mikey said sounding pleased with himself. “Later!”

Mikey then left before we could stop him.

“Well, this ought to be interesting.” April said.

“Should we go after him?” I asked worried about Mikey.

“Eh, he’s gotta learn somehow.” Raph said continuing to do his push-ups.

Just then Leo and Maureen walked in. Leo scanned the room and then he noticed that something was missing.

“Where’s Mikey?” Leo asked.

We explained that April had shown Mikey an online social media site and that Mikey had requested Chris Bradford. When Chris Bradford had accepted him Mikey went to go and meet with him because he thought that they were actually friends.

Leo rolled his eyes, but instead of saying anything about Mikey he said, “I believe I know how the ninjas found us. Once Mikey gets back we’ll go.”

We left immediately after Mikey got home and he looked all giddy after having seen Chris Bradford. Apparently Chris Bradford hadn’t screamed and run, but instead had hung out with Mikey. We didn’t really believe him, but he could believe what he wanted to. We went back up to the rooftop where we found the kitten.

“They must have been watching us from here. The perfect place to stage an ambush.” Leo said pointing at another rooftop.

“It wasn’t very fair, was it?” I asked Leo.

“It’s not about fairness. It’s about victory.” Leo said, I wondered where that had come from.

“Okay, I’m sorry.” I said.

“And then...And then Chris Bradford put on his hakama. Man, that guy can rock a hakama!” Mikey was gushing to Raph.

“Yeah, maybe he’ll wear it again when he takes you to the prom.” Raph mocked Mikey.

“And then after that, he…” Mikey said completely ignoring Raph’s mocking.

“Enough! You’ve been going on about this for three hours.” Raph yelled at Mikey.

“Ooh, someone sounds jealous. You just can’t admit that you were the ‘R’ word.” Mikey said and we all looked at him confused. “Rong!”

Okay, I was going to kill him. How did he not know that wrong was spelled with a w? How did he not know that?

“I’m not wrong !” Raph argued with Mikey.

“Oh, yeah? If you don’t want to talk about my friend I’ve got two other brothers who do.” Mikey said hugging both Leo and me.

“Actually, I’d rather talk about anything else.” Leo said pushing away from Mikey.

“Like the concept of the silent ‘W’, perhaps?” I suggested.

“Ok then what about you Maureen?” Mikey said turning toward Maureen.

“No thank you, Mikey. I’ll listen to more late.” Maureen said trying to be polite, but clearly done with hearing about Chris Bradford for awhile too.

“Fine, I’ll go talk to a guy who likes to talk about Chris Bradford more than anyone else, Chris Bradford.” Mikey said and then he left without another word.

“Should we really let him go?” Maureen asked.

“Yes! Right now anything that keeps Mikey from talking about Chris Bradford is ok with me.” Raph said and we all agreed.

We continued to scope out the place, but found no sign of any ninjas. After a little while we headed home. Mikey came home a little while later and told us that Bradford had taught him The Death Dragon and said he would show it to us. Excited to see this new ninja move, we all listened eagerly.

“And then he kicks, twists, and sweeps the leg...Ha!” Mikey yelled after he had shown us he move. “The Death Dragon!”

“That was amazing!” Leo said sincerely, maybe Mikey becoming friends with Chris Bradford wasn’t so bad.

“Yeah, it’s devastatingly effective and complex.” I said.

“And yet even Mikey could learn it.” Raph said.

“Thank you!” Mikey bowed, not getting that Raph had just insulted him, but then he got it. “Hey!”

All of a sudden the laptop beeped, signaling a messaged.

“It’s Rad-Brad!” Mikey said running up to the computer. “That’s my little name for him. He wants to get together for a little b-ball. Can’t wait to find out what the ‘B’ stands for.”

After Mikey was done he started to leave the lair.

“You’re going now?” Leo asked.

“Sorry, dudes, human friend stuff. You know how it is.” Mikey said leaving and then he came back. “Oh wait, no you don’t.”

Mikey then left again, laughing at his own stupid joke.

“What am I, a dog?” Maureen asked annoyed.

After Mikey left we decided to partner up and practice The Death Dragon some more. Leo paired up with Maureen and I paired up with Raph. Leo was the first of us to perfectly perfect the move and he ended up sending Maureen flat on her back. He looked a little worried that he had hurt her, but Maureen assured him that she was fine and congratulated him on figuring out the move. 

“Where did you learn that?!” Splinter yelled, clearly not as happy as Maureen was that Leo had learned The Death Dragon.

“Mikey learned it from his new friend.” Leo explained.

“The man who taught him that kata is no friend! It comes from the Shredder.” Master Splinter explained and I suddenly felt a pit of fear in my stomach.

“You mean Bradford is one of his students?” Leo asked.

“He must be.” Splinter said, but he didn’t sound as if he had any doubt in his voice.

“So Bradford’s just pretending to be Mikey’s friend to get to you.” Leo summarized.

“Oh, what a relief! Everything makes sense again.” Raph said.

“Mikey doesn’t know that though.” Maureen said.

“Mikey’s in trouble!” Raph said as if what Maureen said had just dawned on him.

We all ran as fast as possible to Bradford’s dojo. We just hoped we weren’t too late when we got there. 

We arrived at the dojo and I spit out the bubblegum I was chewing and attached it to a protractor attached to a pencil. I used that to cut a large circle through the glass and then I popped that circle out. We then dropped ropes down into the dojo so we could get in and find our brother without being detected.

There were a bunch of ninjas down there, but seeing as it was so dark in there we were able to take them down before they even realized we were there. Maureen couldn’t shock them because it would make too much noise and we didn’t want to be found out.

We found Mikey tied up in the middle of the dojo.

“Dudes! That was sporadic!” Mikey yelled not even attempting to lower his voice.

“Shh!” All four of us shushed him at the exact same time.

“That’s not what that means!” I whispered, did this kid know what any words meant.

Leo bent down and cut the ropes off of Mikey. We were able to make it out of the dojo without being spotted at all. Of course I would say that if I was an idiot. We figured that they had set a trap and so we went down into the sewers to stage an ambush like they had staged for us.

First we took out some of their men, silently. One by one all of the ninjas were gone and the only ones that were left was Chris Bradford and some Brazilian man.

“Show your faces!” The Brazilian man yelled after he saw all the ninjas dangling from ropes on the ceiling of the sewers.

We surrounded them on all sides so that they couldn’t get away. Nobody messed with Mikey!

“Take ‘em down!” Bradford commanded and he and the Brazilian man attacked us.

Maureen got the Brazilian man down, but we decided to let Mikey handle Bradford as payback for Bradford using him. To give Mikey credit he was actually able to take Bradford down by using The Death Dragon against him. Maybe there was hope for him after all.

“Hit it!” Mikey yelled to us after both of the men were knocked down.

We turned on the sewer faucet and a bunch of water came rushing out of the tunnels an shot carried both of the men out of the sewer.

“Well that didn’t seem very fair.” Raph said as he watched the men get carried away.

“No it wasn’t.” Leo agreed and we all started laughing.

“High three!” Mikey yelled and we all slapped hands together.

After we got home, we ordered a pizza and after it arrived we started to have dinner. I was about to eat my first slice when I noticed that Splinter wasn’t eating.

“Um, Sensei, aren’t you hungry?” I asked him.

“I fear we are celebrating too soon.” Splinter said.

“Too soon? The bad guys were swept away in a river of raw sewage. By my watch, that makes it the perfect time.” Raph said a little cockily.

“Shredder know I’m alive and worse, he knows about all of you and what Maureen can do as well. It’s my worst nightmare come true.” Splinter said rather dramatically.

“So it’s not over?” Leo asked.

“Oh, no. It’s just beginning.” Splinter said, which made us a little worried.

So maybe it was best that we didn’t try to expose ourselves to humans too much. What if more people turned out to be working for the Shredder. Either way we knew that we had to train even harder because Shredder was out there and he was coming for us.


	5. I Think His Name is Baxter Stockman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The turtles and Maureen get grounded and after sneaking out of the lair come across a new enemy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place during the episode I Think His Name is Baxter Stockman and is told from Mikey's point of view.

Hello people of the universe! Today Michelangelo will be telling you all about our adventures. Last time when my boring brother Donnie talked to you we got to hear about my time meeting Chris Bradford. I thought Chris Bradford was my friend, but it turns out he was just a jerk who worked for the Shredder. Well what are you going to do? Hopefully this time our adventure won’t be so bad.

“Guys, guys, get in your spots!” I shouted to my brothers and Maureen.

“All right, Mikey, but this is the last time!” Raph shouted at me.

“But don’t flip me this time.” Donnie said.

“I ate too much cheese.” Leo groaned.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Maureen asked nervously.

“And now the kid goes for the world record! He will attempt to jump three mutant turtles plus a technopath human female!” I shouted, preparing my skateboard.

I jumped on the track yelling my classic catchphrase, Booyakasha, and made to jump over the guys. This was going to be so epic.

“What is going on in here?” Splinter shouts all of a sudden.

The guys get up looking really nervous. This causes me to crash into all of them and we fall to the floor. 

“How many times have I told you not to skateboard in the lair?” Splinter asked us.

“None, Sensei.” I answer.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you!” Splinter yells.

“You’re right, sensei.” Leo says. “We definitely should have known better.” Was it my imagination or was he directing that comment at me. “And we deserve to be punished. Eh, some.”

“And what do you think would be a fitting punishment?” Splinter asked, uh oh this was a trap.

“Well, uh, we...We should...clean up our mess? And then...think about what we did.” Leo answered.  
We all instantly agreed to this. Splinter, however, didn’t look as agreeable.

“What about being grounded for a week?” Splinter asked, but we knew it wasn’t really a question.

We all started to try to convince him about this idea being totally bad. 

“You’re grounded for a week!” Splinter yelled.

“All of us?” Maureen asked.

“All of you!” Splinter said.

We all groaned after hearing that. This meant that we wouldn’t be able to go above ground for a whole week.

On the first day of our grounding all of us were pretty board. I was reading a comic book and Raph was just pacing around the lair, groaning.

“Gah! This bites! I can’t believe we’re stuck down here for a whole week!” Raph complained.

“Guys, guys! You wanna see what I made?” Donnie asked coming out of his room. 

“This is how bored I am.” Raph told us. “Yes, Donnie. I do.”

“Ok, ok, ok! Remember the other day I was scrounging around in the military junkyard?” Donnie asked us.

“No!” We all said in unison.

“Well, I found an incredibly advanced A.I. microchip, made from...get this! Self-assembled chain-linked copolymers!” Donnie seemed really excited about something I had never heard of before.

“That’s my favorite kind of copolymer!” I said, trying to make Donnie feel better.

“Mine too! And I used it to make this.” Donnie then showed us a circular glowing object. “The most advanced music player in the world.”

“Whoa!” We all said, staring at it mesmerised

“So who wants to try it?” Donnie asked and I raised my hand instantly.

“I do! Toss me the T-pod” I shouted, my nicknaming skills were the best.

“The T-pod?” Donnie asked, he didn’t get my nicknames sometimes.

“Turtle. Pod. T-pod.” I explained, how did he not get that. “I am so good at naming stuff.”

Donnie handed me the T-pod and I immediately put in the headphones. The guys stared at me in worry, but I had no idea why. I turned it on and started screaming in pain. The T-pod was playing polka music. I yelled for Donnie to make it stop. 

Donnie walked over and changed the station to something more pleasant. I thanked him and started dancing to the sweet hip hop music.

“Skate spot?! I’m totally in!” I yelled after hearing Raph say skate spot.

All of a sudden the music changed back to polka and I fell on the ground screaming in agony.

“We’ve got to get some more tunes on this.” I told Donnie.

We left the lair sneakily, like spies on a mission, and reached topside without Splinter realizing it. However, if he did find out we had left we would be dead. 

We ran across the rooftops the rooftops. Well the guys ran, I skateboarded while listening to the T-pod. This thing was epic!

“Hey, Donnie! Thanks for all the new songs!” I shouted at Donnie.

Donnie jumped on my shoulders and was looking at the T-pod curiously. 

“It’s that chip!” I heard Donnie say.

“Whatever it is, it’s awesome!” I yelled as I used the windows on the roof like a ramp.

All of a sudden Leo fell off the roof, into a greenhouse and straight into a beehive. Finally he fell down the fire escape of the building and landed flat on the ground. Maureen immediately ran down there to check if he was ok. The rest of us weren’t as concerned. 

We got to a bunch of stairs with ramps and stuff around it.

“Let’s grind it.” I said.

All of a sudden we saw a guy walking around in a full suit of powered battle armor.

“Wearing powered battle armor.” I heard Raph say. “What kind of church is that?” 

“A really awesome one!” I responded.

I saw everyone else jump after the guy and followed suit. Fighting while listening to music was going to be awesome. We got down there just as the guy was trying to manuel open the metal shutter door. 

“It’s just kind of sad.” Donnie said.

“Yeah, I don’t know if we should pound him or buy him and ice cream cone.” I said.

Leo, however, wasn’t confused at all as he took out his sword and pointed it at the strange man. The guy turned around, but he seemed confused that we were turtles. The guys started to go after him.

“Wait!” I yelled, I decided to take off my headphones and put the T-pod away. I would fight while listening to music some other time.

I then jumped at the man. The rest of the guys followed suit and Maureen used her powers to disable his suit so he couldn’t use it against us. All in all this was the easiest fight we had ever been in. The man fell into a building causing an alarm to sound. We knew we had to be quick, so we decided to throw the guy into a garbage bin. 

“You’re not the first to ever throw me in the trash, but I swear that you will be the las…” But he didn’t have time to finish because we closed the lid on him.

We got out of there as quickly as possible before the police could show up. We skateboarded back to the sewer all while cheering about our epic victory. 

We managed to get back to the lair via the underground water system. Luckily Donnie had made Maureen a breathing mask so she could swim underwater without drowning, unfortunately this also meant that she couldn’t use her wicked awesome powers until she dried.

“All right! We made it home!” Raph yelled.

“Shh! It’s two a.m.” Leo shushed Raph.

“And Splinter’s still asleep.” I added. “This is epic!”

“It’s not epic. It was a really bad idea.” Leo said.

“No, it wasn’t. We got out there and stomped a sleazeball.” Raph said jumping on the couch. “So what’s the problem?”

I turned around and tried to get the T-pod, but I noticed that it was no longer there. I panicked for a minute, but figured that as long as Donnie didn’t find out it would be fine. I mean what’s the worst that could happen?

The next morning during training we paid for our night of fun. Splinter luckily hadn’t found out that we went out, but we were dead tired in the dojo. Splinter was shouting orders at us, but we were so tired we didn’t care.

“Ya-Me!” Splinter shouted and we all took a knee. “Hmm. Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Something we wanna tell you?” I asked. “Nope.”

“You all seem tired.” Splinter noticed.

We all protested against this, but I couldn’t keep my yawn in any longer and I fell to the floor fast asleep and then woke up just as quickly.

“So you would not object to a little randori?” Splinter asked, but we knew it wasn’t really a question.

Then before we could answer Splinter smacked us all with a stick. 

“I hope that you have learned, turtles and Maureen, that truth isn’t the only thing that hurts.” Master Splinter said and then he went into his room.

Later we were all doing our own thing, I was skateboarding, Donnie was in his lab, Raph was reading a comic book, and Leo and Maureen were watching Space Heroes. However, we all stopped doing what we were doing when the same guy we had beat up the night before appeared on the news. Apparently his name was Baxter Stockman and he had a cool new robot body and he was robbing a building. 

“How did he upgrade his armor so fast?” Leo asked.

The news froze and it showed a familiar looking circular object. Uh, oh! I was so dead. The guys all turned to glare at me at the exact same time.

“He has the T-pod?” Donnie asked rounding on me.

“I might of dropped that during the fight.” I admitted.  
“You dropped it during the fight?” Donnie got super close to my face. “Nice goin’, Mikey!” 

“It’s your fault!” I shouted back.

“How is it my fault?” He asked.

“You know I can’t be trusted with nice things!”

That was the wrong thing to say because in the next moment Donnie seemed to be about to explode with anger. 

“So the A.I. chip is upgrading his armor the same way it upgraded the T-pod?” Leo asked.

“And if it keeps going, there’s no telling how powerful he’ll get.” Donnie said.

“This has gone way too far. We have to tell Splinter about this.” Leo said, uh, oh that was not a good idea at all.

“What? That we turned some nutjob into a super villain?” Raph asked. “Do you know what he’ll do to us for that? I mean, he pounded us into the ground just for being sleepy!” 

“Look, we beat Stockman once, we can beat him again.” Donnie said.

“Yeah and all we have to do is have me depower the T-pod.” Maureen said, maybe Splinter didn’t have to find out.

We snuck out of the lair again to go and track down Stockman. We jumped across the rooftops and were able to scope out Stockman thanks to Donnie putting a tracker on the T-pod. 

We snuck into the room that he was in and listened to him come up with names for himself. My favorite that he said was ‘the suitinator’. Unfortunately I voiced that opinion and Baxter Stockman found out that we were there.

“All right, Stockman. Nobody wants to hurt you.” Leo said, brandishing his katanas.

“We don’t? Did I miss a meeting?” Raph asked.

“We just want the T-pod.” Leo said.

“Give up my source of power? Why? So you can laugh at me again? Throw me in a dumpster? ” Baxter asked getting prepared to fight us.

“Sounds good to me.” Raph said.

Raph went straight for Stockman but was quickly shot back. Donnie and I went after Stockman as well, but were picked up by his hands. Maureen tried to depower him, but before she could Baxter kicked her against the wall, knocking her out.

“MAUREEN!” Leo shouted.

Then Baxter threw Donnie and me against the wall as well. Leo ran up to fight Baxter, but Baxter shot something at Leo. The thing that Baxter shot out quickly grew legs and jumped on Leo’s head. Leo ran around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. The thing on Leo’s head started shooting at us and knocked the weapons out of our hands. Then it shocked Leo and we all ran away. 

I ran back though and used my chain to tie Stockman’s hand behind his back. However this backfired on me as Stockman used the chain to spin me around in a circle.

Stockman then threw me at Raph and we both fell on the floor. We got back up to fight off Stockman again. Stockman, though, picked us up using one hand and threw us into a garbage bin. Maureen was still unconscious and Leo picked her up to hold her. She had a nasty bump on her head that Donnie would have to look at when we got home. 

“Foolish turtles! Did you really think you could defeat me?” Stockman asked.

“Well, yeah.” I answered. 

“All my life, people have laughed at me. The other kids in school, my co-workers, the woman who fixes the copy machine...How was I supposed to know you don’t put toner in the top? But when they behold the power of this suit, they won’t be laughing anymore! They’ll tremble in terror!” But before he could go on, Baxter Stockman’s suit powered up. 

“What’s happening?” Leo asked.

“Stockman and the T-pod, they’re merging.” Donnie said, terrified. “They’re becoming one single entity.”

“The Stockman pod.” I said.

We ran away from the Stockman pod in terror. Leo was carrying Maureen and the only way we could tell that she was still alive was her chest moving up and down. So I guess that was good.

“The Stockman pod’s right on top of us!” I shouted in terror.  
“Stop calling him that! That’s a stupid name!” Raph shouted at me.

“Split up! He can’t follow us all!” Leo said.

“No way! He’s gonna follow me!” I yelled at Leo.

“Why would he follow you?” Leo asked.

“They always follow me!” I answered.

“Stop being paranoid and just do it!” Leo said.

We split up and sure enough the Stockman pod followed me.

“Aah! I told you he was gonna follow me!” I shouted in terror.

I ran as fast as I could away from the Stockman pod, but nothing I did evaded him. Not even going over a tall wall stopped him as Stockman just ran right through it. On the other side I saw a pizza delivery guy on a motorcycle.

“Pizza? All right!” Maybe my luck was beginning to change.

I jumped up and grabbed all the pizzas off the motorcycle before turning around to face the Stockman pod.

“I’ve got you know!” He shouted.

“Oh yeah, well I’ve got hot cheese!” I said before throwing an open box of pizza at him.

It landed on his face which distracted him long enough for me to get away. 

We went back to the lair hoping to sneak in without Splinter noticing us again. However we were not as lucky this time as the minute we walked in the lights turned on and Splinter was standing there glaring at us.

“Aah! Sensei!” 

“Donnie take Maureen and take care of her wound.” Splinter instructed Donnie and Donnie took Maureen, thankful for an excuse to get out of Splinter’s lecture. “The rest of you where have you been?”

“Nowhere.” Raph answered.

“How did you all get so hurt? Especially Maureen?” Splinter asked, clearly not believing Raph.

We tried to come up with some sort of excuse, but we knew we had been found out. 

“Enough! Tell me what happened.” Splinter said.

We went in the dojo and explained to Splinter about Baxter Stockman and the T-pod. Maureen had woken up and Donnie had put a bandage on her wound. She, however, would not be able to fight for a little while. 

“I’m still highly disappointed in you all. The first rule of being a ninja is ‘Do no harm’. Unless you mean to do harm. Then do lots of harm.” Splinter lectured us.

“You’re right, Sensei. I guess we did make a mess of things.” Leo said.

“So...What do you think would be a fitting punishment?” Splinter asked. 

“We need to clean up our mess.” Leo said.

“Yes. You must stop this...Stockman pod.” Splinter said.

“But, Sensei, that guy’s already kicked our shells and now he’s even more powerful. How are we supposed to stop him?” Donnie said, saying what we were all thinking.

“I know! I’ll hit him really hard!” Raph suggested.

“Brute force is not the answer. You will need to rely on your ninja training.” Splinter said.

“Excuse me, Sensei, but ninjas never had to go up against guys in armor.” I said.

Splinter moved to the side and on the walls I saw ninjas fighting guys in armor. 

“Oh, I mean ninjas always had to go up against guys in armor.” I corrected myself.

“Nice save.” Raph muttered to me.

“Sensei, what was their secret?” Leo asked.

“They understood that you do not fight the armor. You fight the man inside.” Splinter told us.

We went back up to the surface and we left Maureen behind because of her head wound. We climbed on top of the rooftops in order to scope out the Stockman pod. The part of the plan that I hated most though was that I had t be the bait.   
I found Stockman and started taunting him to get him to chase me. What I didn’t know though was that Stockman now had missiles.

“Guys!” I yelled when I got closer to the guys. “Stockman pod’s got missiles.”

The missiles came at us and I ducked behing a stairwell to avoid the missiles. My brothers used their chains to tie Stockman up and I went down to gloat.

“Now who’s trembling in terror?” I asked, but in the next moment Stockman broke out of the chains.

He picked me up and threw me into a nearby window. Luckily it was the greenhouse where Leo had falling into and I picked up the beehive and zipplined back down to chuck it at Stockman’s head. I shoved it right into his suit and Stockman started screaming in pain. 

While he was distracted we threw him off the building and then destroyed the T-pod which depowered Stockman’s suit. Baxter came out of the suit, his face full of bee stings.

“So...we’ll call it a tie?” Baxter asked.

“Wanna call it a tie, Raph?” Leo asked.

“Not yet.” Raph said cracking his knuckles.

We then threw Baxter into the garbage bin again and Raph shut the lid on him.

“Now it’s a tie.” Raph said.

We cheered and then went back to the lair. Splinter had us go back to the dojo to talk to us.

“You all showed wisdom and great skill in defeating the Stockman pod. I am proud of you all.” Splinter said.

“Does this mean we’re not grounded anymore?” Leo asked.

“Yes.” Splinter said stroking his beard. “But first...randori!”

We all ran away from Splinter’s stick. So that’s the end of this week. It was probably much better than Donnie’s tale. We learned not to sneak out and that dropping a T-pod can have dire consequences. So all in all not a bad day. I can’t wait until next time.


	6. Metalhead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Splinter teaches Donnie to appreciate his weapon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place during the episode Metalhead and is told from Splinter's point of view.

The things that can happen when you are raising four teenage ninja turtles. Each day is a new adventure, like when they bring home a female teenage technopath or when you ground them and then they end up creating a giant killer robot because the snuck out. I knew that being a parent was hard, but I didn’t know it would be this hard.

Currently my sons were out fighting the Kraang. Maureen had stayed behind since she still froze up whenever she got anywhere close to the Kraang. I was busy training her since she thought that if she could fight them with more than her powers then maybe she wouldn’t be so afraid of them.

“Ok Maureen again!” I commanded her and she came at me again, but I had her on her back in five seconds. “You are being too praticable.”

“I’m sorry Sensei. Should I try again?” She asked, I had to admit even though she wasn’t very good she was still my best student when it came to patience and perserverance.

“Not today. I hear my sons coming in and I think you should go join them.” I told her.

“Hai, Sensei.” She said and bowed to me then she ran off to join the others.

Before I had the chance to start meditating Donatello came in and handed me his broken staff. 

“You have broken another one, Donatello?” I asked him while trying not to smile, Donatello could be clumsy with his weapon, but it was the weapon most sutible for him.

“Sorry Sensei.” And before I could ask anything else he ran off with an excited look on his face.

Oh, well I guess it was time to get another staff. Luckily I had a whole bunch of them in the closet in my room. I got one and walked back out to give Donatello the staff. I found him examining and dissecting a Kraang robot. 

“Donnie got another stick to break.” I heard Raphael say as I walked past him, I wish that he would stop teasing his brother so much.

“With all due respect, Sensei, I can’t keep fighting alien technology with a six foot staff.” Donatello told me while trying to avoid eye contact. “I was hoping to upgrade my weapon.”

“Mmm! A seven foot staff. Interesting.” I said jokingly.

“No, I meant using modern technology.” Donatello explained not understanding that I was being sarcastic.

“Aah, a solar-powered staff.” I joked again.

“I’m serious, Sensei.” Donatello said getting upset.

“I know and yes, you may upgrade your weapon.” I told him. I did not want him to give up the Bo Staff, but I also knew that the only way he would learn would be if he made his own mistakes.

Donatello started to protest, but then he realised that I had given him permission to upgrade his weapon and he look surprised at me. 

“Ninjas have improved their arsenal for centuries. We are masters of adaptation.” I explained to him.

“That is great! ‘Cause with this technology, I will be invincible!” Donatello said and he looked very excited.

Donatello started to get extremely excited and he started rambling about what he would make. 

“But remember, technology is a means, not an end. It is you who must prevail in battle, not your weapon. Combat is not a video game.” I tried to explain to Donatello, but it did not appear that he was listening to what I was saying at all.

He started to drag the Kraang robot away and I tried to ignore the bad feeling that was happening in my stomach. I went back to the dojo to meditate, since I had to let Donatello do what he felt he needed to do.

Hours later I heard commotion inside the sitting room and went to see what was happening. What I saw were my sons being beaten up by a tiny robot that appeared to be controlled by Donatello. Raphael then used his sai to flick the remote out of Donatello’s hands and it landed right by my feet.

“Sensei, I was wondering if I could take metalhead for a spin tonight.” Donatello said as he was retrieving the remote.

“You may.” I said.

“That’s totally unfair. You can’t just...Wait, what?” And again Donatello looked confused at my instantly agreeing to his request.  
“You have created this new weapon. We must see how well it works.” I said going over and patting the tiny robot on the head.

“Well, that’s great. Thank you, Sensei.” Donatello said.

“But it is a test only. Do not take it into combat.” I instructed him. 

“No problem, Sensei.” Donatello agreed instantly.

With that I walked away even though I knew that Donatello would not listen to me and would take the tiny robot into combat. Again, he had to learn from his own mistakes.

I walked out a little while later to see Donatello frantically pressing buttons and hearing Michelangelo’s screams coming from the television.

“Donatello, the time for games is over.” I said placing a hand on his shoulder. 

“You’re right. My brothers need me.” Donatello said getting up.

“Wait!” I said stopping him and I threw his Bo Staff to him. “Here!”

Donatello bowed to me, flipped the Bo Staff onto his back and left without saying a word. I knew that if I just gave him time he would come to the conclusion that he needed the Bo Staff. After he left I took Maureen back into the dojo and started training her to fight again.

My sons came home hours later, exhausted but successful. Maureen went out to join them and I left the dojo as well. When I got out there I saw three of my sons playing pinball but Donatello was sitting down and he looked upset.

“What troubles you, Donatello?” I asked him.

“This was all my fault, Sensei.” Donatello sighed.

“You are responsible, yes.” I told him. “Responsible for destroying the mutagen. Responsible for saving the people of this city. Responsible for defeating advanced technology using only ingenuity, bravery, and a stick.”

“Thanks, Sensei. Maybe you’re right.” Donatello said.

“I am.” 

“I guess with proper training there’s nothing better than a wooden stick.” Then his expression changed. “Except a laser guided, missile launching wooden stick.”  
Donatello hit his missile stick, that he apparently had, on the ground and it started beeping.

“It’s not supposed to do that! Run!” He shouted at us.

We all ran and took cover in the dojo to avoid being blown up by the missile. Luckily Maureen was able to deactivate the missile before it actually exploded. As I said, life was never boring when you were raising four teenage mutant ninja turtles and a teenage technopath.


End file.
